This was never on our list of must-see places during our short trip in Kundasang, but it ended up being one of our unexpected favorites!
It doesn’t take long to explore, and the entrance fees are reasonable. If you want, you can go for a guided tour too.
Here’s how you can get here and what to expect if you would like to visit this place too!
Getting Here
The gardens are inside Kinabalu Park which itself, is a short drive from Kundasang. Visitors must pay the respective entrance fees to enter the park. Regardless of whether you intend to climb Mt Kinabalu or not.
We paid RM10 per adult. Another RM5 went to the parking fees for our rental car.
These fees don’t include the entrance fees to the gardens. Which we will talk about in the next section.
We had some difficulty finding the entrance to the gardens. Maybe because we were starting from Ligawu Restaurant inside the national park. If that is the case for you too, then just walk down the hill from the visitor car park, until you see a parking bay for buses. There is a small gift shop here and a simple eatery with plastic tables and chairs outside.
There was one entrance to the garden that was gated and locked. We found another one leading downwards to a short bridge with plenty of greenery around. There’s a big statue of a rafflesia flower on the ground here.
Entrance Fees
You’ll find the ticket counter for Mount Kinabalu Botanical Gardens inside the gardens. This is after the short walkway with trees on both sides – it feels kind of like being in a bamboo forest in Japan.
That costs us another RM4 per person. If you want a guide to show you around the gardens, it costs an extra RM10.
We might have gotten a guide, but it looked like the guides were already fully booked. There weren’t any guides manning the counter inside the garden. We did see a couple of guides taking visitors around the garden during our visit though.
What The Gardens Are Like
There’s no clear-cut path through the gardens. Nor is there a map except for the signboard close to the ticket counter. We could have taken a photo of it for reference but we just wandered through the gardens without a map, and at a leisurely pace. We tried to be mindful of which sections we already explored – this was not too difficult since they don’t all look the same.
Inside the gardens, there are streams, some manmade structures made of natural materials. As well as proper walkways and steps.
About two or 3 large plant-filled gazebos can be seen here. We basically saw something interesting at every corner of the garden.
Orchids that you should look out for are displayed in posters on the walls of the ticket office. We studied these for a bit before entering the gardens so we would know what to look out for.
There is one section of the garden dedicated to rare plants, but through our unexpert eyes, we only saw a couple orchids and pitcher plants here.
If mossy forests delight you, there is a lot of healthy moss in this garden. We saw them on the trunks of trees, over boulders and on the ground too.
It didn’t feel hot and humid in this garden, even at midday. It is cool here and we did not see any mosquitoes either.
Strangely, we did not see any wildlife here -no interesting insects, birds or even monkeys. Or maybe we just aren’t great observers!
Note: Use a toilet somewhere else before you come here as we didn’t see any in the gardens.
Conclusion
We spent a lot longer than we thought we would to check out these gardens completely. It took us about an hour before we decided to leave.
While it might have been more interesting to see the gardens with a well-informed guide, we still managed to pick out some curious specimens on our own. Even if we don’t know what they’re called, we could still appreciate their unique beauty.
This garden is not wheelchair friendly though and we could not bring granny with us. It’s quite safe for children though, as the walkways are well maintained with railings.